Zotac RTX 5080 Solid Review

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

Card releases often came in two sorts. There was the reference card generally to be ignored, the cheap cards for those either on extreme budgets or about to rip the cooler off and water cool everything, or the ones most people brought. Not that there is anything wrong with any of those, but as a sweeping generalisation it fits the bill. Since both Nvidia and AMD revised their coolers to be extremely good, the change has been a subtle one but nonetheless there. Now cards are split on price, between MSRP cards, or ones that cost more. For those of you who remember, the OG RTX 4080 was 1200, so the £979 of the RTX 5080 is a bargain.

Until today the MSRP cards were always akin to the cheap ones we mentioned earlier. The bare minimum of covers, fans or anything beyond a very austere take on the design. Even if the price wasn’t far above the most affordable version, everyone generally brought the more expensive ones just because you need the extra cooling for quality of life reasons. Nobody wants to sit next to a wind tunnel every time you fire up something more demanding than Balatro.

Enter the Zotac RTX 5080 Solid

All of that changes now. We know we’ll be showing you the Solid in detail on the next page, but just take a cursory glance at the image above. A triple fan cooler. That’s rare. A triple fan cooler that is more than just a black plastic rectangle is, to quote Dr Johnson, like a dog that speaks Norwegian. Even rarer. It isn’t only in the front on view that the Zotac Solid has changed the game though. It’s thicker than certain world leaders with its triple slot IceStorm 3.0 cooler, and comes complete with an adaptor for those with older power supplies.

Cast your eye across the specifications and then we’ll show you it in the flesh.

Technical Specifications